Of all the good things that happened for the Detroit Tigers in their important and efficient 6-1 win over Seattle on Friday night, there's one accomplishment that stands high above the rest.

Willie Mays, George Brett, Curtis Granderson.

The last three major-league players with 20 doubles, 20 triples and 20 home runs in the same season. Pretty amazing, isn't it?

"I'm really kind of speechless," Granderson said.

There's more to come for Granderson, still one stolen base away from the even more exclusive 20-20-20-20 club (Mays and Frank "Wildfire" Schulte are the only two current members).

There's potentially more to come for the Tigers, who have 21 games left to catch the New York Yankees in the American League wild-card race.

The Tigers began Friday three games behind the Yankees, but they feel like they have a chance, now that they have their first three-game winning streak since the middle of July.

It helps that the starting pitching finally seems to be in order, and also that Justin Verlander is once again pitching like an ace.

Verlander went eight innings for Friday's win, his third in a row and his fifth in his last six starts. He survived a 31-minute rain delay in the fifth inning, and also a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the seventh.

He got an early lead when Placido Polanco and Magglio Ordonez drove in first-inning runs, and he got more of a cushion when the Tigers added runs in the second, the sixth and the seventh. The Granderson home run made it 5-1, basically putting the game away.

But what Granderson did wasn't about one game. He was just the sixth player in modern major-league history with 20 doubles, 20 triples and 20 homers, and he was the first Tiger ever to do it.

Brett did it last, in 1979. Mays did it before that, in 1957.

Two Hall of Famers. And now Granderson.

"Unbelievable," Ordonez said. "Unbelievable."

Granderson has known for a while that he was on the way to a special season, and he said the toughest part has been to avoid thinking about it during games.

"It's distracting me at the wrong times," he said. "I'll be in the outfield, and I'll find myself thinking. The good thing is, we have to focus (on the games)."

They know that. They know they can't avoid slip-ups.

"We're playing good," manager Jim Leyland said. "But it's pretty much mandatory that you play good now."

Leyland's biggest decisions Friday involved Verlander. He said that Verlander wouldn't have continued had the rain delay lasted an hour or more, and he said the delay affected his decision to pull Verlander after eight innings and 92 pitches, rather than let him go after a complete game.

"He threw some in the cage during the delay," Leyland said.

Leyland didn't have to worry about Granderson, who did Friday pretty much what he has done all season. He got the Tigers started with an infield hit in the first, and then hit the home run that helped him make history.

"He's just such a wonderful person," Leyland said. "I couldn't be happier for him."

Granderson, of course, already was thinking about what's next. He has 21 games left, and he needs that one stolen base for 20-20-20-20.

"The good thing is, the big swing is over with," he said, referring to the 20th home run. "Now I've just got to get on base and find the right time to run."